Human Events Thomas Sowell Sep 6, 2005
The physical devastation caused by hurricane Katrina has painfully revealed the moral devastation of our times that has led to mass looting in New Orleans, assaults on people in shelters, the raping of girls, and shots being fired at helicopters that are trying to rescue people.
Forty years ago, an electric grid failure plunged New York and other northeastern cities into a long blackout. But law and order prevailed. Ordinary citizens went to intersections to direct traffic. People helped each other. After the blackout was over, this experience left many people with an upbeat spirit about their fellow human beings.
Another blackout in New York, years later, was much uglier. And what has been happening now in New Orleans is uglier still. Is there a trend here?
Fear, grief, desperation or despair would be understandable in people whose lives have been devastated by events beyond their control. Regret might be understandable among those who were warned to evacuate before the hurricane hit but who chose to stay. Yet the word being heard from those on the scene is “angry.”
That may be a clue, not only to the breakdown of decency in New Orleans, but to a wider degeneration in American society in recent decades.
Why are people angry? And at whom?
Apparently they are angry at government officials for not having rescued them sooner, or taken care of them better, or for letting law and order break down.
No doubt the inevitable post mortems on this tragic episode will turn up many cases where things could have been done better. But who can look back honestly at his own life without seeing many things that could have been done better?
Just thinking about all the mistakes you have made over a lifetime can be an experience that is humbling, if not humiliating.
When all is said and done, government is ultimately just human beings — politicians, judges, bureaucrats. Maybe the reason we are so often disappointed with them is that they have over-promised and we have been gullible enough to believe them.
Government cannot solve all our problems, even in normal times, much less during a catastrophe of nature that reminds man how little he is, despite all his big talk.
The most basic function of government, maintaining law and order, breaks down when floods or blackouts paralyze the system.
During good times or bad, the police cannot police everybody. They can at best control a small segment of society. The vast majority of people have to control themselves.
That is where the great moral traditions of a society come in — those moral traditions that it is so hip to sneer at, so cute to violate, and that our very schools undermine among the young, telling them that they have to evolve their own standards, rather than following what old fuddy duddies like their parents tell them.
Now we see what those do-it-yourself standards amount to in the ugliness and anarchy of New Orleans.
In a world where people flaunt their “independence,” their “right” to disregard moral authority, and sometimes legal authority as well, the tragedy of New Orleans reminds us how utterly dependent each one of us is for our very lives on millions of other people we don’t even see.
Thousands of people in New Orleans will be saved because millions of other people they don’t even know are moved by moral obligations to come to their rescue from all corners of this country. The things our clever sophisticates sneer at are ultimately all that stand between any of us and utter devastation.
Any of us could have been in New Orleans. And what could we have depended on to save us? Situational ethics? Postmodern philosophy? The media? The lawyers? The rhetoric of the intelligentsia?
No, what we would have to depend on are the very things that are going to save the survivors of hurricane Katrina, the very things that clever people are undermining.
New Orleans can be rebuilt and the levees around it shored up. But can the moral levees be shored up, not only in New Orleans but across America?
Dr. Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
I don’t know about you all, but if I had to choose between drinking raw sewage and taking one of the few bottled waters left at an unsupervised market when there’s no help in sight, I’m taking the bottled water. I’ll send them a check for the $3 later.
Now I’m not advocating theft as a way of life, but there’s difference between taking a can of beans when your life is hanging in the balance and breaking into a store to steal a pair of Nikes, no?
I don’t know .. is this horrible?
Of course not. Under these circumstances taking food, diapers, anything needed to survive is understandable.
“Fruit of Liberalism . . .”
I think that “liberalism” functions for many conservatives the same way that Satan does for fundamentalists. For fundamentalists Satan is a pervasive, mystical force that is always present no matter what you do, always dragging you down, always making things worse.
For many conservatives liberalism is the same. Whatever goes wrong, well, that’s the liberals for you. Poor people in New Orleans? Liberals. Riots? Liberals. Don’t like what’s on TV? Liberals. Have to pay taxes? Liberals. Don’t like the schools? Liberals. Problems in the economy? Liberals. Social problems? Liberals. Crime? Liberals. Drugs? Liberals. Can’t win a war? Liberals.
No matter what the good conservatives do, no matter the extent of their political domination, the liberals somehow always ruin everything. They are always present, always undermining what the good people are trying to do. Look behind any problem and you’ll see a liberal lurking there.
It’s actually not that liberals are responsible for all these things, but that many conservatives, especially religious conservatives, need an enemy. Take one enemy away from them, and they’ll find another.
Unfortunately, conservatives have been without a good enemy for a few months. Late last year it was Kerry and the Democrats. After they were vanquished in the last election, Michael Schiavo was the enemy du jour. But that was a few months ago. Even today there isn’t a really good enemy to latch on to, so it’s back to the liberals once again.
For my friends and I trying to figure out who the next enemy is has become a kind of sport. At this point I don’t have a good sense of who the next enemy will be. So near-term, my money is on the generic liberals. Always up to no good, those liberals.
Exactly, Jim. It’s always easier to attack something by attaching a scary label to it than to provide a well reasoned, substantive analysis.
The author’s argument is that an American welfare state created a culture of dependency and irresponsibility that is the primary cause of poverty in America. While there may be some slivers of truth in that assertion, no serious, credible analysis would attribute all poverty to the “liberal” welfare state and ignore consideration of the the greater socio-economic, political and historical context.
1) What about housing patterns that create pockets of concentrated poverty in urban areas?
2) What about the welfare reform bill of the 1990’s? Didn’t it address many of the problems the author claims are causes for poverty?
3) How exactly does the elimination of programs that enable people to escape poverty, and the substitution a policy of public neglect, operate to reduce poverty?
4) Isn’t there a contradiction in arguing for smaller government and supporting George W. Bush who has sharply increased the size of the federal government?
An indication of this author’s detachment from reality is a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that said:
“‘The era of big government wasn’t over,’ says Allen Schick, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland. ‘Look what happened with spending. It was hibernating under Clinton and revived under Bush.’ The year Mr. Bush took office, federal spending amounted to 18.5% of gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced that year. This year, before adding the cost of Katrina, it was projected at 19.8% of GDP, and paying pensions and health care for baby boomers will push it higher still. Katrina already is adding fuel to the spending fire….
In this climate, Mr. Bush’s principled effort to create “an ownership society,” in which individuals take more responsibility — for health care, retirement, housing, education — and rely less on their government, has been stopped in its tracks. His quest to repair Social Security and create private retirement accounts, already stalled on Capitol Hill, may be dying. Preaching self-reliance right now, whatever the merits of the case, won’t work.
…The horror of New Orleans, the photos of Americans on rooftops waving “Help Us” signs, the squalor of the Louisiana Superdome and the convention center, the failure to heed well-publicized warnings about the inadequacy of the levees — all are provoking loud attacks on local, state and federal governments. But those aren’t cries for less government. Government spending over the next five years will be bigger, perhaps significantly bigger, because of Katrina and its aftereffects.
That poses a formidable challenge to the president and Congress. Today’s combination of small-government tax rates and big-government spending plans is pleasant and popular. It isn’t sustainable.”
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/09/small_governmen.html#trackback
If you read Sowell, particularly “Visions of the Annointed,” you would have a better grasp of his thinking. Sowell is a conservative in the Russell Kirkian mode. He believes in the wisdom of the moral tradition. Liberalism, he feels, undercuts much of what keeps society stable and ensures progress, which, if you look at the corruption in New Orleans, is being proven true before our eyes.
Father J: Wouldn’t every Christian fall into Sowell’s defintion of the annoying, misguided, morally superior “annointed”. Look at those annoying Christians with their morally superior attitudes and misguided intentions trying to change the world for the better – who do they think they are? How did Jesus know those people who gathered to hear him preach on the hillside didn’t have loaves and fishes at home? Why wasn’t Jesus concerned about creating an irresponsible culture of loaves and fishes dependency? Was Jesus speaking from the top of the hill to be better heard ,or to claim the symbolic moral high-ground?
I agree with Sowell that politicians often proceed on the basis of emotionalism and public relations, rather than careful analysis, when passing laws and introducing new programs. But why is this a defect solely attributable to liberals. Has no conservative ever tried to capture “the moral high-ground?” Many of the proposals introduced by conservatives as part of their so-called “ownership society” are as untested, unable to withstand rigorous scrutiny and based completely on good intentions rather than careful analysis, as any program ever devised by a liberal.
To date, no proposal for private social security accounts has been offered that does not add trillions to the federal debt and/or leave program beneficiaries less secure and in worse financial shape. Yet in exactly the manner of Sowell’s annointed, conservatives demand that we go forward with privatization on the basis of good intentions.
Notes 3 and 4: Jim said: I think that ‘liberalism’ functions for many conservatives the same way that Satan does for fundamentalists. For fundamentalists Satan is a pervasive, mystical force that is always present no matter what you do, always dragging you down, always making things worse. … For many conservatives liberalism is the same. …
I have trouble with this for a several reasons. First, I had thought the belief about Satan that Jim ascribes to “fundamentalists” was a rather respectable (perhaps even Orthodox) position. He seems to imply that this belief is laughable. (Correct me if I’m wrong; I’m sure you will.) Second, turning to the other part of the analogy, the practical consequence of his comment is to make any use of the term “liberal” — and any analysis based on it — off limits. Paraphrasing: You want to criticize liberals? That’s just paranoid. (I suppose I’ll get corrected on the paraphrase, too. But if that is not his intent with that particular comment, then what is it?)
I think a more productive approach would be to ask the following: 1. Does the term liberal denote anything? 2. If so, what have been the most prominent and influential liberal policies? 3. Looking at these policies, what have been their results? Jim’s comment seems to laugh this kind of analysis out the door.
BTW, this is my first comment here after quite a bit of time reading and appreciating what others are saying. My thanks to Fr. Hans for his effort in providing this blog and forum.
No, Christianity would not fall under Sowell’s definition. Sowell deals with the utopian visionary (socialist, communist, etc.) who promises to improve the world but ends up creating more suffering. The welfare policies that trap the poor in a cycle of poverty from cradle to grave for example, would fall under his definition.
Note 7: Augie, people attribute many things to Satan (natural disasters, illness, failure, etc.) that in reality should be attributed to nature and their own shortcomings. Lacking the ability to control everything around them, they seek to find a scapegoat very often. In many cases, it’s “liberals”.
The problem is that I’m not really sure if a “liberal” exists in the manner we’re speaking of. Some very religious African-Americans believe in affirmative action but reject abortion. Some gays favor small government and approved of the war in Iraq (such as columnist Andrew Sullivan). Many otherwise conservative believers favor a strict separation of Church and state and really don’t care if kids can pray in class. There may be liberal thoughts, but they’re not always held by this boogeyman called a “liberal”.
Note 9 makes a valid point, but it seems to strain to avoid the reality Fr. Hans describes in note 8.
Augie, fair enough. Again, I have no gripe with a critique of ideas. The idea that able-bodied people should have zero responsibility for their own lives financially or morally and that they should sit on the couch eating Moon Pies and watching Jerry Springer all day at the dime of the American taxpayer is obviously a bad idea. I personally don’t want to pay for someone to do that!
Which welfare policies encourage this, though? I’m not asking sarcastically, I’m just curious. There are strict eligibility guidelines for welfare and food stamps (and unemployment). You can check out the TANF site for more details. You can’t simply collect welfare for your entire life. If we’re saying that welfare as it exists leads to the problems I mentioned, we need to at least specify which policies do this and how.
Note 11. James, what New Orleans reveals is that a permanent welfare class functions to keep corrupt politicians in power. The poor are kept poor to justify the policies of a political class who have no real interest in alleviating their poverty.
The terms “liberal” and “conservative” when used in Christian discourse are fairly amorphous terms that don’t necessarily mean the same things to all involved. The Christian message incorporates some concepts that could be construed as conservative as well as some that could be construed as liberal. Christianity does not beget some political monolith that is easily pigeonholed.
Fr. Hans writes: “Sowell is a conservative in the Russell Kirkian mode. He believes in the wisdom of the moral tradition. Liberalism, he feels, undercuts much of what keeps society stable and ensures progress, which, if you look at the corruption in New Orleans, is being proven true before our eyes.”
First, I haven’t read much by Sowell. My impression is that his deeper complaint is not against “liberalism,” per se but against modernity. As Lloyd says in post #13 “liberalism” is a very amorphous term. It’s difficult to know what the word even means. I know a lot of people who describe themselves as liberals. Sometimes I read lists of the terrible things that liberals do, but such lists don’t seem to have anything to do with the liberals I know. For example, I suppose one could say that Christians bomb abortion clinics, but such a characterization would be monumentally unfair and inaccurate, even though in a literal sense it is completely true. So I just don’t find the term “liberal” very helpful or informative.
But back to modernity. In previous generations one’s religous and moral beliefs, indeed, almost one’s entire existence was basically a given. For example, several hundred years ago you didn’t have to wonder what “career” you would have. That was given to you, based first of all on your gender, and secondly, on what your father did.
Likewise with religion. In fact, the use of the term “religion” to identify a discrete set of beliefs separate from the larger culture is a fairly recent innovation, occurring perhaps in the last several hundred years. In other words, in previous centuries your religion was typically part and parcel of what the culture was all about. A religion wasn’t something that you “chose” — it was one of the cards dealt to you at birth. Going to mass wasn’t something you “did” — it was simply how you lived.
In modern times that is no longer the case. Now, even people who have traditional religious beliefs hold them in a non-traditional manner. You yourself (Fr. Hans) are a convert to Orthodoxy. I knew you when you were just regular old “Hans.” Orthodoxy for you was a choice, part of a very modern search for a self-identity that was informed by a number of religious and non-religious factors. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the world in which we live.
Perhaps Sowell doesn’t like that world. Perhaps he would like to exist in a traditional setting. So would I. Believe me, it would be a lot easier. But that’s not the reality that we have. Modernity is an existential, not a political factor. The liberals are not denying the existential context, but trying to operate within it. Modernity presents us with a personal and social space that is largely uncharted and in which it is easy to go astray. Nonetheless, wishing for a different world is not a helpful option.
Jim said:
In modern times that is no longer the case. Now, even people who have traditional religious beliefs hold them in a non-traditional manner. You yourself (Fr. Hans) are a convert to Orthodoxy. I knew you when you were just regular old “Hans.” Orthodoxy for you was a choice, part of a very modern search for a self-identity that was informed by a number of religious and non-religious factors. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the world in which we live.
That’s something I thought about a lot myself around the time I was received into the Orthodox church myself. It particularly strikes me in relation to the “converts” who seem not only to have become Orthodox but to have become Russian peasants as part of the deal (technologically savvy Russian peasants who most likely discovered Orthodoxy on line); we all know the type. There’s a paradox here in that those of us who remake ourselves in religious terms are doing something so much in the American individualistic tradition, even when what we think we are claiming something countercultural. The idea of shopping around for a church, or even a religion, is part of our heritage as a society shaped by the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.
Sowell’s complaint isn’t with modernity, but ideology. He is a kind of a Bernard Henri-Levy (“Barbarism with a Human Face”) towards, say, the modern welfare state where ideas that ostensibly help people enslave them instead. He is interested in these ideas and the people who promulgate them (the “annointed”).
Sowell is a public intellectual in the same class as say, Leon Kass or Theodore Dalyrmple, people who have the ability to comprehend culture in broad sweeps yet get the particular insights right. He is worth reading, IOW.
The Tyranny of Visions is a short column where Sowell explains how the self-annointed can wreak havoc in society.
Augie writes: “First, I had thought the belief about Satan that Jim ascribes to ‘fundamentalists’ was a rather respectable (perhaps even Orthodox) position. He seems to imply that this belief is laughable.”
First, welcome aboard!
In my experience fundamentalist Christians understand the idea of Satan in a way that would make many Orthodox uncomfortable. I enjoy the discussions here, but I myself am not Orthodox. The concept of Satan is something that has developed over time, and the Jewish understanding of Satan was very different from the Christian understanding. Personally, I don’t find the concept very helpful or meaningful.
Augie: “Second, turning to the other part of the analogy, the practical consequence of his comment is to make any use of the term ‘liberal’ – and any analysis based on it – off limits.”
I see what you mean. In my experience the term — as used by many conservatives — is so broad as to be almost meaningless.
Personally, I don’t criticize conservatives for being conservatives. I criticize particular ideas and individuals. But conservatism is is a very large tent, and some of the ideas I don’t disagree with. Most people would characterize me as a liberal, but there are individual liberals I disagree with and other I agree with. Some liberals I can’t stand.
Here’s an interesting question: have you ever seen an article written by a liberal that was a blanket condemnation of conservatism? I haven’t. I’ve seen plenty of critiques of certain aspects of conservatism, but never anything that blamed vast expanses of problems on conservatism per se.
Augie: “I think a more productive approach would be to ask the following: 1. Does the term liberal denote anything? 2. If so, what have been the most prominent and influential liberal policies? 3. Looking at these policies, what have been their results? Jim’s comment seems to laugh this kind of analysis out the door.”
Actually a balanced critique of very specific aspects of liberalism would be fine with me. But in my experience critics of have no interest in balance and are typically unwilling to deal in specifics. Again, they treat liberalism as some kind of evil metaphysical force, permeating everything.
Take the recent gulf coast disaster. Personally I think that the Bush administration is filled with incompetents. I think Bush himself is rather stupid, and in the case of the disaster response the political apointees in charge of DHS and FEMA have performed poorly. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the state and local officials either, but in a large-scale disaster such as this I’m more concerned with the performance of the feds. I think in this situation we also need to look at the number of resources devoted to Iraq, the administration’s policy of large tax cuts, and the effect that both of these have had on the situation in the gulf coast.
Now, note in the above paragraph specific criticisms of individuals and agencies. I don’t attribute the poor performance of individuals or agencies to “conservatism” in general. I don’t assume that conservatism is this evil force that somehow screws everything up.
But if you look at a lot of the stuff that Fr. Hans has posted here, he and his articles criticize “liberalism” in exactly that way. Liberalism is responsible for the poverty of New Orleans. It is responsible for the “corruption” of New Orleans. Liberalism is responsible for the rioting. Liberalism is responsible for a breakdown in the fabric of society. Liberals are “clever” in a bad way. They are the “intellegensia,” which for many conservatives is another way of saying “liberal elite.” This is not a reasoned or balanced critique. It’s a diatribe.
The only specific criticism of liberalism in recent days is that traditional welfare policies are responsible for multigenerational black poverty. Whether that is true or not I don’t know. What you’ll never hear is that a huge portion of welfare goes to help people who are elderly, sick, dying, and disabled. You’ll never hear an acknowledgement that while not all welfare policies are successful, in fact we don’t have people starving in the street in the U.S. We don’t have packs of people living off of garbage dumps. And so on. The other thing you won’t hear is that no conservative has found a solution for multigenerational black poverty either.
In my view, there’s very little interest here in either specific or balanced criticisms of liberalism. If I have time I’ll post later on why I think that is.
Note 17: Jim said, in mimic mode, “Liberalism is responsible for the poverty of New Orleans. It is responsible for the ‘corruption’ of New Orleans. Liberalism is responsible for the rioting. Liberalism is responsible for a breakdown in the fabric of society. Liberals are ‘clever’ in a bad way. They are the ‘intellegensia,’ which for many conservatives is another way of saying ‘liberal elite.’ This is not a reasoned or balanced critique. It’s a diatribe.
Is New Orleans poor? Are other cities not poor? How did they get that way? How do they stay that way? Does the difference have anything to do with liberal policies and mindset?
Is New Orleans corrupt? Are other cities not corrupt? How did they get that way? How do they stay that way? Does the difference have anything to do with liberal policies and mindest?
Was there rioting (looting, actually) in New Orleans? Was there not rioting (looting) elsewhere under similar conditions? What accounts for the differences? Do the differences have anything to do with liberal policies and mindset?
Are the people who make up the educational and journalistic infrastructure (“the elite”) of this country predominantly liberal in outlook and policy? What influence do they have? What effect have they had?
I think Sowell presents a good framework from which to answer questions like these. It is not politically correct to ask these questions and try to answer them. But doing so is not a diatribe.
Juli writes: “There’s a paradox here in that those of us who remake ourselves in religious terms are doing something so much in the American individualistic tradition, even when what we think we are claiming something countercultural. The idea of shopping around for a church, or even a religion, is part of our heritage as a society shaped by the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.”
Well, yeah, you nailed it. In an important sense we’re all in the same boat — liberals, conservatives, religious, secular — everyone. This is one reason why I do not find those distinctions very productive. There are some deeper questions that need to be asked and deeper issues that need to be addressed.